- Authorities have not released the nationalities of victims.
- 16 migrants and one smuggler drown off Bodrum; 2 rescued.
- Nearly 1,400 migrants have so far died in Mediterranean this year.
Sixteen migrants and a people trafficker died when their inflatable dinghy capsized early Friday in the Aegean Sea off the Turkish resort of Bodrum, the coastguard said.
It was the latest in a series of migrant deaths on the short but perilous route between the Turkish coast and the nearby Greek islands of Samos, Rhodes and Lesbos that serve as entry points to the European Union.
“The dead bodies of 16 illegal migrants and that of a trafficker have been recovered,” the coastguard stated, adding two migrants had been rescued.
The local governor’s office had earlier given a death toll of 14 migrants, stating on X that a migrant had managed to alert the coastguard to the emergency.
One of the two survivors, an Afghan, told rescuers that the vessel had sunk barely 10 minutes after starting to take on water.
He had been forced to swim for six hours to Celebi Island, he added.
Authorities did not give the nationalities of the other migrants. Bodrum lies less than five kilometres (3 miles) from the Greek island of Kos.
“Search and rescue efforts for other irregular migrants considered missing continue with four coast guard boats, one coast guard special diving team and one helicopter,” the governor’s office added.
The Aegean Sea is a frequent transit route for thousands of migrants attempting to cross from North Africa and the Middle East into Europe, particularly from Turkey, which hosts millions of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The number of irregular migrants caught in Turkey peaked in 2019 with nearly 455,000 people, mainly from Afghanistan and Syria, according to the Presidency of Migration Management.
According to the Missing Migrants Project run by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), nearly 1,400 migrants have died trying to reach Europe via the Mediterranean Sea this year.
Turkey, which signed an agreement with Brussels in 2016 to stem illegal immigration into the European Union, hosts more than 2.5 million refugees on its soil, the vast majority Syrians, say officials.
